Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. > British & Irish Glass
Breaking News Nailsea / Bristol hat found in charity shop in Bristol for £1.50
Paul S.:
nice flask m - what provenance did the seller give you? Although the Nailsea works was still making glass some thirty something years or so after the beginnings of glass being coloured with uranium (Nailsea closed in 1874), I can't see anything in either Vincent or Margaret Thomas' book to suggest the Nailsea factory produced material with a glow :) It's perhaps a possibility that as Nailsea appear to have been making crown glass (pale green) and bottles (dark green) which are both utility type material, then the addition of uranium would never have been a consideration. According to the attachments above from Clevedon, Nailsea only ever made crown glass (soda-lime) and bottles - very little fancy glass was ever made, and apparently none commercially - I think David has already made these points. Flasks were one of the most common kinds of friggers, so I guess were made at most of the Bristol, Midlands, and northern factories - and no doubt the Continent. Manganese was certainly used, and I'd assume very essential, in view of the iron impurities in the sand, which until about 1830 was sourced locally since that was a lot cheaper than places like the I.O.W.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to buy a 'violin/chello' in pale blueish green, so will post a pic. if I do manage to get it.
flying free:
No provenance, just bought in the vicinity. And yes,having re- read the thread and read the items you posted, I now know it wasn't made in Nailsea. So why are these called Nailsea flasks I wonder - I will start a separate thread for it now :)
m
KevinH:
--- Quote ---So why are these called Nailsea flasks I wonder
--- End quote ---
This is just a continued use of the name rather than saying "Nailsea-type" (referring mainly to the style of loops). Nothing more complicated than that.
Paul S.:
Mike's suggestion that Clevedon may still have copies of Margaret Thomas' booklet is quite true, and I can recommend this as a very good read for the small outlay of something like three or four quid - well worth getting, so thanks Mike.
Coming back to the problem of why so much material was previously attributed to the Nailsea factory (when in fact most so called Nailsea glass was never made at Nailsea) - it seems, according to Margaret Thomas, that the culprit was a wrong assumption made early in the C20 by the then curator of Taunton Museum. For copyright reasons I can't quote from Thomas' booklet, but the bottom line seems to be that this assumption lead to all the material in a leading collection of C19 glass, formed by one Mrs. Challicombe, being described as having all been made at Nailsea...........and like so many areas of antiquity, subsequent workers following suit without checking facts - for those who may have the booklet, it's page 26.
I've attached a pix of my 'cello' (this is the correct spelling :-[). Very pale blueish green (might it be described as aquamarine?? - certainly not the pale green of my hat shown above, somewhere) - c. 8.5" long, and appears to be an enclosed vessel. Pontil has been snapped from the foot, and quite a lot of wear on the back, so would seem this instrument has been laying down for most of its life. Attractive pincered work with some stones and bubbles as you'd expect. Plenty of dirt in the crevices, and in my opinion no later than c. 1850 - 1860 - possibly earlier. No idea of its origin though.
If inappropriate to post here, then please move - it might go into a 'frigger/friggar' post together with m's flask, perhaps :)
Paul S.:
Obviously not working well today :'( I meant to also add that the only other musical instrument frigger I can find is in Wilkinson, where he shows what appears to be a clear glass example of a violin/'cello. He doesn't give any attribution, and comments that his is 'completely handmade c. 1860'. Not easy to tell the collour of his example as the book pic. is black and white, but it looks to be quite probably a clear example - and a bit neater and well made than mine.
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